Listen & tracks
1 of 28 tracks have a preview · 13 works · 49:46
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1 Waly Waly Traditional 4:21
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2 Weep You No More Sad Fountains John Dowland 3:06
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3 Sposa son disprezzata Antonio Vivaldi 5:51
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4 Salley Gardens Traditional 3:00
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5 Gymnopédie No. 1 Erik Satie 3:03
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6 Ständchen Franz Schubert 3:50
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7 Bachianas brasileiras No. 5 Heitor Villa-Lobos 5:16
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8 Berceuse Leo Brouwer (Guitar solo) 3:52
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9 Yesterday John Lennon 2:56
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10 Modinha Heitor Villa-Lobos 1:30
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11 Halcyon Christine McCombe 2:50
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12 Je ne t'aime pas Kurt Weill 4:15
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13 As Time Goes By Herman Hupfeld 5:56
Noonan shaped the disc as a deliberate turn from the flamboyant diva roles that had filled her stage life — Carlotta in The Phantom of the Opera, the Ghost of Opera in Chamber Made's Recital — toward gentler repertoire.
The programme moves from Dowland and Vivaldi through Britten's folk arrangements and Schubert's Ständchen to Satie, Weill, Villa-Lobos, Lennon and McCartney, and Christine McCombe's setting of Rossetti, Halcyon. Constant's guitar, recorded at the ABC Southbank Studios, keeps the partnership close and unforced.
In the artist’s words
Divas and prima donnas have featured largely – and loudly – in my performing life over the last few years: Nellie Melba, Carlotta from The Phantom of the Opera, Ghost of Opera from Recital. Satisfying and fun to play, but all temperamental, or panic-stricken, or tragic!
So this collection of songs celebrates love in a gentle way. Love lost, love yearned for, love savoured and experienced and won. The songs are classics from great composers of centuries past – Dowland, Vivaldi, Schubert, to timeless folk songs, to the twentieth century masterpieces of Satie, Weill, and Lennon and McCartney.
I love the intimacy the sound of the guitar brings to music. The just-you-and-me-alone quality. I loved singing to Peter Constant's exquisite guitar accompaniment. I hope you will enjoy listening to these classic love songs.
The classical guitar has come a long way since the great Andrés Segovia set out, as if "on a mission from God", to give the guitar a status as a solo concert instrument.
These days, the life of a classical guitarist is a deliciously mixed bag. Our days are typically spent in a kind of (irresistible) mayhem of practice, researching and arranging, working with composers, rehearsing with musicians of "sundries kindes", performing, recording, and passing on our knowledge to others who share our bizarre attraction to the sound of the plucked string.
Working with Helen on this collection of songs was a collaboration which included most of the above activities at some point. And it was seriously good fun.
Reviews
★★★★¾
Sounds Lovely
Helen Noonan has conjured a musical masterstroke
This pleasant collection of love songs is delightfully presented by two distinguished artists... Happily, the recording captures the sense of intimacy so essential to the expression of these songs thus making for a disc of light and diverting gems.
Helen Noonan, partnered impeccably by guitarist Peter Constant, presents a wide ranging and soothing slice of repertory with consistent aplomb. ... A thorough going joy for the laid back warmth which it consistently generates: soothing as it is, however, it sustains interest primarily on the strength of the obvious empathy of both performers with their wide-ranging repertory combined with the impeccable interplay of their partnership. ... Impeccably presented ... Delicate music making at its best, tailor made for languid listening in the drowsy heat of a summer's day. ... The wash of exquisite sound is irresistible.
Artists
Helen Noonan
soprano
Soprano Helen Noonan is a Melbourne original. A trained actress. A trained singer. The striking feature of her work is its vocal and dramatic versatility which sees her playing roles from the straight operatic to contemporary operatic.
Peter Constant
guitar
Peter Constant is one of the new breed of fine young guitarists this country has produced in recent years, with a solo performing career extending to Italy, America and Holland as well as to capital cities and regional centres across Australia.
Benjamin Britten
composer
Edward Benjamin Britten (1913–1976) was an English composer, conductor and pianist. His operas are firmly established in the international repertoire, and more of them are played worldwide than those of any other composer born in the twentieth century.
John Dowland
composer
John Dowland's lute songs and ayres carry a rare, deliberate melancholy: tears that fall in measured pavans, love that stings in galliards, darkness that still sings. His music remains the living heart of the English Renaissance songbook.
John Lennon
composer
John Lennon's songs cut through styles and decades with plainspoken hooks and melodies that refuse to age. From Beatles classics to the solo anthem Imagine, his writing keeps finding new voices in jazz rooms, a cappella circles and the concert hall.
Paul McCartney
composer
Paul McCartney's songs travel far beyond their rock origins. Melodic, singable and built for reinvention, they turn up here in jazz sets, a cappella harmony, intimate guitar ballads and even harpsichord with drums and bass.
Christine McCombe
composer
Christine McCombe is a Melbourne-based Australian composer whose chamber and electroacoustic works explore silence, time and space. Her music has been performed by leading ensembles and soloists in Australia and abroad.
Erik Satie
composer
Erik Satie's piano music moves in slow, spare circles. The Gymnopédies and Gnossiennes rest on simple modal melodies and unresolved chords, cool, unhurried and strangely weightless.
Franz Schubert
composer
Franz Schubert (1797–1828) was an Austrian composer of the late Classical and early Romantic eras. In only thirty-one years he left a vast body of work, including over six hundred Lieder, and remains among the most frequently performed composers.
Heitor Villa-Lobos
composer
Heitor Villa-Lobos (1887–1959) was a Brazilian composer whose vast output fused native folk and popular music with European classical craft. His Bachianas Brasileiras remain among the most recognised works of twentieth-century South American art music.
Antonio Vivaldi
composer
Antonio Vivaldi (1678–1741) was an Italian Baroque composer, priest and virtuoso violinist. He is best known for his instrumental concertos, above all the violin cycle The Four Seasons.
Kurt Weill
composer
Kurt Weill (1900–1950) was a German-born American composer for the stage, known for blending popular idioms with serious craft so that theatre music could speak to a wide public.
Leo Brouwer
composer
Leo Brouwer’s guitar music moves between Cuban pulse, modernist experiment and later modal clarity. The Etudes Simples, Hika in memory of Takemitsu, Micro Pieza and Berceuse show how sharply he can shape atmosphere and motif.
Ruth Valladares Corrêa
composer
Herman Hupfeld
composer
Maurice Magre
composer
Fred Noad
composer
Ludwig Rellstab
composer
Christina Rossetti
composer
Christina Rossetti was a nineteenth-century poet whose verse has long been set as song. Her words appear as song texts across several Move recordings.
Don Santin
composer
Joe Washington
composer
W. B. Yeats
composer
W. B. Yeats (1865–1939) was an Irish poet, dramatist and writer, and one of the foremost figures of twentieth-century literature. His lyric verse, steeped in Irish legend and craft, has long been set for the concert platform.
Digital booklet
Digital booklet Notes, texts and credits — read online or download the PDF Download the PDFPerformers
- Helen Noonan · soprano · all except track 8
- Peter Constant · guitar
Technical credits
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Producer
Paul Petran
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Recording Engineer
Russell Thompson
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Venue
ABC Studios, Melbourne
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Credit
Donna Coleman
Phil Lukies
Details
- List price
- $25.00 AUD
- Total playing time
- 49 minutes 46 seconds
- Release date
- 1997
- Categories
- Classical, Vocal
- Musical work copyright
- © 1997 Helen Noonan
- Sound recording copyright
- ℗ 1997 Move Records
- Catalogue
- MD 3198
- EAN
- 9314574319828
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